The advantage that is tapped into when an owner decides to engage the services of a professional Carmel staging firm has been demonstrated time and again, so you’d think that most sellers would choose to claim that resource. Although no one tracks the Carmel statistics, you can bet that the majority of local sellers don’t even interview a professional stager, despite the proven value their service brings. That fact will come as good news for those who do—it creates an advantage that puts them ahead of the crowd.
The reasons may include reluctance to grant the power to make decisions about how the property is to be presented to the buying public. After all, it’s THEIR house, not the stagers’! But most owners will agree that the whole point of hiring a pro is to take advantage of their vast (and recent) experience in creating spaces that sways today’s buyers—and how to avoid what no longer works.
It is clear that the Number One reason why staging is only used by a minority of homeowners is due to the unquantifiable nature of the value-add for any given staging effort. When trusty old living room furniture is temporarily replaced by mint-condition rental substitutes, the staging expense can be costly—especially since it must necessarily be taken on without an iron-clad guarantee that the investment will garner results.
Even though there may be no way to test that elusive ‘what if’ proposition, a check of the National Association of Realtors® statistics on how its members rate the effectiveness of professional staging shows that fewer than 10% say it has no effect on buyers. A top-heavy 82% say staging helped their buyers visualize the property as a future home. More than a third report that staged homes brought offers that increased by anywhere from 1-10% of the final purchase price. The 1%ers might not support a staging effort—but you can bet the 5%-10%ers are fans for life!
Still, the problem with those NAR reports is that there is no way to compare actual offered prices with those that would have been had staging not taken place. But there IS one reassuring measure that may sway undecided Carmel sellers—it’s this:
A majority (53%) of Realtors report that the number of Days on Market for professionally staged homes is shorter than those for their non-staged competition.
There’s only one way that statistic could be true: staging works! And when a home is snapped up by buyers, logic dictates that the offers are bound to be higher—even if bidding wars haven’t entered the picture.
Professional staging is just one of a series of ways Carmel sellers can maximize selling success—with the first one being to give us a call! We’ll be standing by.
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